


Sweet Summer Prince

by brbsavinggotham



Category: Hart of Dixie
Genre: Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 09:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brbsavinggotham/pseuds/brbsavinggotham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wade is 11 years old and it's summer in Alabama.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Summer Prince

**Author's Note:**

> So I have this idea of little Wade growing up super in tune with nature and absolutely living outside. This was written before the mid-season hiatus so ignores what was divulged vis-a-vis Wade's mother. I apologise in advance for the second person narration. And the sappiness.

You’re eleven years old and lying on your stomach in your backyard, and you can feel the summer come up through the earth. The dirt is red and your shirt is white and it’s probably going to stain. It’s nearly dinner but the sun’s still trickling through the trees, hitting the ground in little spots here and there like it has a secret no one knows. No one but you. They wouldn’t believe you anyway. There’s something underneath Bluebell, something in the ground that craves the sun and fights its way back to it past the frost and the snow. You can tell before anyone else, but that’s because no one is paying attention. You feel the warmth seep into your skin where your shirt has ridden up and you wonder if it’s always there, biding its time until winter has had its fun. You press your ear to the ground and you can make out, barely, an ancient rumble of words coming up through the layers and layers of rock and dirt. If you told them, they’d say that it was just your dad stalling the station wagon in the driveway or a truck going past on the main road. And they’d be wrong.

You’re eleven years old and your brother is your best friend and every day is an adventure. One day you’re a pirate and the next you’re an emperor and the next you’re a cowboy, and Jesse is always right there beside you, fighting the same evil. The sun always shines and there’s always a pitcher of lemonade in the fridge.

When you finally go inside for dinner, your mother scowls at your shirt and ruffles your hair and it strikes you again how beautiful she is.

*

You’re twelve years old and something feels different. You wait through autumn and winter and spring and you wear shoes every day even though you hate not being able to feel the ground and when summer bursts through again, something is off. It’s June and you brush it off because you can still hear the trees and they would tell you if something bad was coming. Dad builds you a fort in the old tree up at the boundary line and there’s still lemonade in the fridge. On Sunday nights, after the dinner table has been cleared and the dishes done, you still hear your dad put on his old Andy Williams vinyl and you still sit in the doorway and watch him spin your mother around the living room, her in her apron and gold hair flowing and her quiet grace, laughing. After a few songs they get tired and just sway together, holding each other, and you can hear them singing along to Moon River, her smooth voice and his cigarette and gravel one mixing together.

It’s July and one day you’re a pirate and the next you’re an emperor and the next you’re the snot-nosed little brother that needs to grow up, don’t you get it? Jesse is learning how to drive in the old station wagon and suddenly you’re fighting the evil by yourself. The days he’s home, he’s hungover and you go to the fort alone. The breeze makes the dried leaves scrape across the walls and the whisper of wood against wood calms you down, brings the fire pit of anger and jealousy and hurt in your chest down to a simmer. You get dragged to church on the last Sunday of the month and your black shoes are too tight and it’s too hot inside the building and where in the Bible does it say that Churches can’t have air conditioning? If God made Bluebell, couldn’t he at least have fitted in some ceiling fans? Your mother takes your hand and smiles down at you and it’s holier than half the smiles lining the walls so you sing along with the congregation and try not to sweat through your nice shirt, even though it itches.

When you get home, Jesse and his friends are smoking in the fort and he just smiles at you like nothing is wrong, like he hasn’t just brought outsiders into your place, your sacred place. You nearly break your leg climbing down the ladder so fast. Your ship is sinking, your empire is burning. You lie down in the dirt and fall asleep under the sun, ear pressed close to the ground, listening.

When she eventually finds you, she doesn’t try to bring you inside or even mention that she’s going to have to throw your shirt out. She folds her long legs and sits next to you without a care for her beautiful blue Sunday dress, threads her slender fingers through your mop of hair and it’s all alright so you tell her about the creature that lives under the ground. You tell her how you can always feel the summer, in the soil and in the air and in the way the leaves rustle and the fence creaks and the birds move. “Sometimes it’s like it’s in my bones” you say and she laughs and draws you closer.

“In mine too,” she says.

“Let’s go inside, my sweet summer prince,” she says, and you do.

It’s August before Jesse says he’s sorry, and it’s September before you stop being mad at him. He drives you to the first day of school and you forgive him when you see all the kids looking at you like your big brother is the coolest guy in Bluebell.

*

You’re thirteen years old and the winter is brutal. There’s less lemonade in the fridge but always bourbon in the pantry. Your parents don’t dance to Andy Williams anymore.

*

You’re fourteen years old and one night, your mother comes into your room and ruffles your hair like she hasn’t done in years, and she reads you Dylan Thomas until you fall asleep like she hasn’t done in years. You wake up in the middle of the night and see her reading in the armchair by the light spilling in from the open door.

“Are things okay, mom?” you ask her and she kisses your forehead instead of answering.

In the morning, she’s gone.

*

You’re fifteen years old and you’re not a pirate or an emperor or a cowboy. You’re a kid with a dad that drinks too much and a job that pays too little and a brother whose shadow you can’t get out from under. Sometimes you still press your ear to the ground in your back yard and try to hear something but every time it just turns out to be a car going by on the main road.

You get home from football practice one night and your dad is staring into the bottom of a glass of whiskey like it’s going to give him an answer. There’s already an empty bottle on the table and there’s a good three fingers missing from the second. You don’t realise it right away but he’s listening to Moon River and his shoulders are shaking with sobs that only half make it out of his throat.

 _Moon river, wider than a mile_ , Williams is singing and your fists are clenching.

 _You dream maker, you heartbreaker_ , Williams is singing and you’re trying to take the glass out of your dad’s hand but he’s clinging on and it falls to the table, spills, falls to the floor, and suddenly the hardwood is covered in stars, dozens of them, little shards of glass shining like constellations.

 _Wherever you’re going_ , Williams is singing but you don’t catch the rest of the line because you’re being shoved by shaky hands and you’re being yelled at by cigarettes and gravel. The first time he’s said anything in more than a monotone in over a year and it’s because someone spilled his drink.

“Come on, Dad,” you say. “Please.”

“Dad, come on, you should go to bed.”

“I’m the one that paid for it anyway,” you say and he looks like someone’s just hit him. You clean up the glass and when you look up, he’s left and so is the bottle.

You’re fifteen years old and on the first day of summer, your brother comes home with his head shaved and an army application. On the last day of summer, he’s gone.

*

You’re sixteen and you and your best friend finally make varsity. You trade in the rumble of the earth for other things, just as sweet: the purr of the station wagon you taught yourself how to fix on the new tarmac between Bluebell and Mobile, the hum of a girl’s body as she glides over you in the back seat. Who needs whispering trees when you have a bottle of Jack and half the cheer squad?

Within two months of making the team, you get yourself suspended. You still go to practice; you sit on the bleachers with Lemon and try to ignore the occasional “nothin’ like his brother, such a shame” from the coach that floats up to meet you. Lemon disappears for a few days and when she comes back, you can see the sadness on her like she’s wearing it painted around her neck. It’s the same sadness you see on yourself. It takes three days for her to tell you what’s going on, and then it takes three more for her to stop.

“I don’t have a mother anymore,” she says one afternoon in early spring as the two of you watch George run drills down on the field. It’s a fact: Lemon Breeland no longer has a mother. It feels like something hits you right in the chest and knocks the breath out of you.

“Neither do I,” you say and it’s the first time you’re admitting it to yourself. You, Wade Kinsella, no longer have a mother. You have a brother and a father, technically. You have a boss and a coach and a principal.

“What kind of pair are we?” she asks and she smiles the same kind of smile that you used to see on someone else. And you take her hand and you wait for George to finish and when comes up, taking the steps two at a time, you blink away moisture and you realise what you do have. You have Lemon and you have George, and maybe it's not the family you started with but it's all the family you need.


End file.
